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that?’
    ‘The answer is Yes.’ A pause. ‘You do with Jeremys.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    'You must know.’
    ‘I don’t,’ she insisted.
    ‘Prognosis nil. That’s a medical term, Miss Travis, for no future. For a short thread in the tapestry of life. But of course you must have known that.’
    ‘How? Why? What are you saying?’
    For answer he gave a brief laugh.
    ‘Jeremy had no time left,’ he went on, ‘he never had had time. It was a miracle he reached the years that he did.’
    ‘Please go on,’ she said quietly.
    ‘So I checked which September, and the rest was easy. Jeremy might not have bothered to find out your name, but Walsh knew.’
    ‘The caretaker?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Letters,’ Paddy nodded. She said it dully.
    ‘Letters,’ Magnus David agreed.
    ‘But I still don’t understand. What did it matter? Was Jerry asking for me?’
    ‘Oh, no, nothing like that. Don’t go all sentimental too late. Also don’t go too fast. That will come later.’
    ‘Then?’
    ‘I found out your name ... something which Jeremy hadn’t, and it would have made it awkward in law had the thing gone through.’
    ‘The—thing?’
    His lips tightened. ‘I found out your name,’ he resumed, ‘after which running you to earth was compara tively simple. I found out where you worked. Are you catching on now?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Not very alert today, are you, Maryrose?’ He smiled without amusement.
    ‘What—what else?’
    ‘What you already know.’ A shrug. ‘I decided on your line of business, the business of orphans.’
    ‘Destitutes, too,’ Paddy came in woodenly, and he nodded.
    ‘It seemed as good a charity as any to me, especially with a house too large for one. So ’
    ‘So?’
    ‘I contacted your Mr Aston ... it is Aston?’
    ‘Yes, Aston. Then?’
    ‘Can’t you guess?’
    ‘No, Mr David, I can’t guess,’ she snapped. ‘And don’t try to concoct a significant interlude between Jerry and me, because there wasn’t any.’
    ‘No? But there must have been something.’
    Paddy looked at the man through the darkness, for night definitely had fallen now.
    ‘What?’ she challenged.
    ‘You tell me and I’ll tell you.’ He laughed scornfully. ‘But to prompt you I’ll tell you part of it.’
    ‘Part?’
    'There are two parts, happily, then unhappily, for you.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Part One: Poor Jeremy left you everything he possessed, Miss Travis. That’s your happy part.’
    ‘I’m touched, but they would be nothing—not, as you tell me, at the age of eighteen.’
    ‘He was only seventeen then. You see, he wrote the thing at once. Seventeen, not even the lower legal age that is now currently accepted. Well, are you starting to catch on now?’
    ‘Catch on?’ she asked.
    ‘He left a will at seventeen, a very emotional and affectionate piece of prose, but’ ... a pause ... ‘he was seventeen nonetheless, and that’s your Part Two, the unhappy part.’
    ‘Did—did Jerry know his future?’
    ‘His lack of it, you mean? Yes.’
    ‘I said once he looked young and he didn’t like it.’ Paddy caught her lip with her teeth and held back a sob.
    ‘Oh, he was intelligent,’ Magnus shrugged. ‘Don’t think because he made a will as a minor he was unaware of things. Not Jeremy. No, he would be depending on me.’
    ‘On you?’
    'To see it through.’
    ‘Which you won’t.’
    ‘Which I won’t.—Tell me, Miss Travis, as a matter of interest, what did you do to mesmerise him?’
    ‘Mesmerise?’ she queried.
    ‘I said that.’
    ‘I did nothing,’ Paddy insisted.
    ‘Which is what you will be receiving.’
    ‘And would have, anyway, for Jerry had nothing.’
    ‘Oh, no, my dear, you’re wrong.’
    ‘But I tell you, he was as hard-up as I was.’
    ... Race you to the buoy. Last out of the water buys the lunch ...
    ‘He had nothing then.’ Magnus must have read her thoughts. He negotiated a sharp bend. ‘But a year has passed. An estate has been wound up. Are you